My 2013 New Year’s Resolution

My New Year’s Resolution, start writing my blog again.

Happy New Year 2013

I have been on hiatus while I moved across country and started my new job. While on my break, I discovered a couple of things. First, I missed writing. Second, I need to write. When I write I am able to empty some of the thoughts that bounce around my head before they cause serious damage.

We have all read time management books, listened to experts, even tried different “things”. The one thing I have learned, is some things are more important than others, and what makes them important is they keep me sane. Well more sane anyway. So no matter how full my plate is, I have to make room for the sanity savers.

Manage Time

I have settled into my new position and have a whole bunch of new fodder for my technical sales blogs. I look forward to getting them on pixels soon.

I hope you all have a great New Year and are able to fit the important things into it. 2013 is shaping up to be an exciting, productive and profitable year. 

New Position Process

Wow, where have I been? Well starting a new position is time consuming. Maybe I should say it SHOULD be time consuming. If you expect to get up to speed in any new position by just putting in the “normal” amount of work hours, you are sadly mistaken. In the software sales industry, you have to expect to put in a lot of hours in a regular work week. When starting a new position in that industry, expect to add at least 25% more than the producers are putting in.

How Much Time?

I don’t know how this sounds to you, too much or too less, but it seems to be what works for me. Too many more hours than that and I start to lose my sharpness. Any fewer and I can’t do the daily load and learn the amount of information I need to to keep ramping up.

Again, I’m a technical sales resource, so I need to know all the nut’s and bolts. So how do I do it? Read, read a lot. It is amazing what you will learn if you read everything your company produces about your product. Marketing slicks, sales brochures, Web pages, technical manuals and release notes. Not just the most recent release notes, read them for at least a year back. This will help you find information that your competition uses against you based on old information, as well as helping existing customers know what they can gain if they upgrade.

You have to know what you need to know

While I’m reading, I’m watching. Watching others work. What do they say? What do they show? What do they make sure to point out? What are they sure to avoid? All of this is invaluable. Next, I talk to others about what I have read and seen. Coworkers, customers, prospects, anyone. Again, this will help refine what I know and how it is received and perceived.

The original "Like"

I have done technical demos for my Wife and Mom before. Why? If I can’t make them understand complex technical software, I need to simplify my presentation. I always start with simple demos when showing a new product. Tell a story, paint a picture where people can see themselves using the solution, get them to want more, and be ready to do that.

Do you Sell like Football or Football?

I have been watching the European Football championships.  I like soccer, which is what we in America call what the rest of the world calls Football. Fun game, lots of setting up and them flashes of action when headed to the goal, trying to put the ball in the twine. 

I also like Football, by that I mean American Football which is a cross between rugby and rollerball. Football is a sport of plans and plays to drive the length of the field for a score with the pigskin. So when you sell, do you sell like Football, or Football?

Everyone has a sales style. Created or evolved, you have one. So is it more like Football (Soccer) or Football? Let me see if I can help you understand. Oh, I know these are not all inclusive and I’m taking a lot of license here… 

Soccer is a game that many Americans find boring, they miss the fluid strategy and on the fly decision making (often called being clever by announcers) that setup exciting scoring opportunities. One on one a goalie has little chance in stopping a striker from scoring. There are few times when the other 10 players on the pitch allow a one on one opportunity. In order to score, a player must use his teammates to move the ball into position, sometimes passing it backwards, giving up distance to get a better angle. All of this happens on the fly, no time to stop and make a plan. You have to really know your teammates to make it work.

Trying a Clever move...

Football is a game that gets an Americans blood pumping. Baseball may be America’s Pastime, Football is America’s Lust. In Football, Plans are made to move the ball forward. You know you have 4 attempts to move the ball at least 10 yards to get another set of 4 downs to keep moving the ball forward. It is less important to make decisions on the fly, if the right play was called against the defense. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to get done. Pound the ball up the middle, as Ohio State Football coach Woody Hayes said, 3 yards and a cloud of dust. Football is a team sport, if you don’t do your assigned task, the play fails and you might lose the game.

This is a tackle..

So is your sales process well defined and documented? Do you have a plan when you start? Know how you are going to leverage your team and what roles they need to play? Looking to move the process forward each time you have a prospect touch? Are you able to project sales from your pipeline? If so, your sales process is like American Football.

If your process didn’t match the one above, is it less defined? Is your process ad hoc? Does everyone do everything? Do your sales linger a long time? Do you shy away from “hard” questions? Do you have a hard time generating sales projections? If these match, you sell more like Soccer.

Now I’m not saying one is better than another, they are two different sports and two different sales processes. If you sell like Football, you will maximize your time with the prospects and allow you to handle more sales. If you sell like Soccer, you will win deals that the Football salesperson would have given up on or lost due to their style. 

The most important thing is to know your style and to make the most of it so you don’t end up in a Nil to Nil game.

The Old Dutch Open

We have an event in my family started by my uncle Jim 32 years ago called the Old Dutch Open. The Old Dutch is a Frisbee Golf tournament that is held every spring on my Great Grandparents farm in Southern Ohio. Every spring around 20 participants gather, along with many additional family and extended family members, to celebrate life.

Official Sponsor of The ODO

I have learned many life lessons at this event, and as I often do, I’ll share some of them with you here and explain how they make sense to me.

The first lesson I learned was give everyone a chance to join. There are a lot of different kinds of people who play, and that makes it more enjoyable. Some of them are family that I have known all my life. Some, friends of the family that I’ve know my whole life as well. Some went to college with my Uncle, I have known them since the start of the tournament 32 years ago and are now like family. Then there is everyone else, friends of friends, one time players, school friends of the children of the players, work friends, it goes on and on.

Why was this important? When I started working with salespeople, I found them like players at the Old Dutch. Some I were closer to, some not so much, but I had to play with all of them. Not only play with them, but compete at a high level. Learning coping skills for different personalities helps a lot. Everyone in your organization needs to be given the chance to join in and win.

17th Green

The second lesson is truly a life lesson. Sometimes you are leading, sometimes in last. Some days things come easy, some days not. Luck may be with you, or playing against you. Guess what? You still have to play. Grip your Frisbee, look where you want to throw it, wind up and let it go, watch it fly, keeping your eyes on it because it rarely lands exactly where you aimed. Walk to the Frisbee and do it all over again. Sometimes you don’t have a good throw, or a good option to make the next throw so you have to make the best shot you can, because you do have to throw.

Just like life. Make a decision, see the results, make the next decision based on your options. After the game is over you can look back at the bad decisions or missed opportunities, while you are playing you have to think about the next shot. I have seen salespeople struggle with this as well. You have to do what you can with what you have in the sales process. You can visualize the perfect sales process, but you have to sell in the one you have.

The third lesson I’ll share today is have fun, it is a game. This doesn’t mean don’t try, or don’t care, it means if trying and caring make you forget you are playing you need to reverse the order. I have been playing when I was near the top of the leader board and all of the sudden I get ultra-serious. The first thing that tends to happen when I do this is my game goes to hell. My shots get erratic. I then get even more serious and frustrated. I also stop having fun. If the game isn’t fun why are you playing?

Same with work. If it isn’t fun, why not? Why do it? Money is always the answer, but few of us have a position that pays so well we can’t get close to it doing something we like to do. Life should equal fun, if not, look at your life.

So close...

So I’ll be throwing a Frisbee over the hills of Southern Ohio this week, having fun, with my extended family, hoping everyone else in the world gets to experience happiness like this.

I Don’t Think of Myself as a Writer

I said these words to a couple of friend of mine who are writers. Richard Tubb and Karl Palachuk. You can follow the links to their blogs. Richard looked at me and said, “But you are, and you need to feel that way”. I know what he is saying, I write, people read my stuff, I’m a writer. So how does my attitude affect my writing? Does it make me less serious or professional about it?

Karl, Richard and Steve.
I don't know what we were laughing about!

                                                    

I need to do some thinking on this, but I think that I view my writing as just something I do, I don’t work on it. I don’t practice my craft. So I might be limiting how good I can get.

Well Richards comments made me think about all of the people who read my blog and wonder what things they are that they don’t think they are? What things aren’t they getting better at?

Many of my readers are in the IT Service industry, an industry that is dominated by technical people. In order to grow their business they have to sell stuff. Themselves, services, software and hardware. But do they think they are salespeople? No, anything but, and I’m sure this effects their sales.

• You are what you eat.
• It’s not what you say, it’s what you do.
• Birds of a feather flock together.

We have all heard these types of comments, most likely from our Mom, and she wasn’t wrong. We may be more than the sum of what we do, but we are at least that. I recommend you make a list of all the things you do in your business. Now next to each one, write down what you do to learn more about, or get better at that function. Do you have some gaps? Me too.

So now, where ever you have a gap, let’s fill it in. Sales training, a tax or accounting course, technical training, whatever you need, because if you do it, you should understand you are it, and should do it well…

Rude Dude

We have all heard horror stories of rude French waiters. When people found out my wife and I were planning a trip to Europe they all seemed to have a war story of rude that they, or someone they knew, had to endure. Armed with a blanket of protection made out of hearsay and fear, we proceeded. Guess what? Not a single rude encounter across 3 European cities including Paris.

As a student of human interaction, (a people watcher), I have discovered three things I think have led to the rude waiter syndrome.

I'm Rude

1.       Different customs were the first thing I noticed. In Paris, if a seat is open, you can sit there. You don’t need to ask or check, just sit. If you ask, the waiter may seem dismissive as they point towards the open seats, that isn’t rude, just annoyance because you didn’t understand the custom.

2.       Taking care of repeat customers. The hotel we stayed at was in a semi-residential neighborhood. There were a lot of regular customers in the restaurants who lived in the area. Did they get preferential service over the tourists? Of course, and rightly so. They are a recurring source of income for the business. Again, not rude, just smart business.

3.       Being left in peace. The number of times an American waitress at an Applebee’s will ask you if you need anything over the course of a 30 minute meal, 37. The number of times a waiter in Paris will ask if you need anything over a 2.5 hour meal, 3. If you need something, just get their attention and it will be taken care of, don’t expect them to chew your food for you.

As a student of sales, I connected the dots and wondered how many of us lose sales because we are not understanding our customers, or they are not understanding us. Do we think they are rude, do they think we are? Is that rudeness really just misunderstanding or priorities?

I'm Rude too...

How do we solve this? Set expectations. If you are selling, tell the client how your process normally goes. We have a meeting, a demo, I present a contract if it looks like there is a fit, we have another meeting to get the signed contract. If you state this to the client, they will not be looking for pricing right away, they may ask for it, but they won’t be expecting it. If buying, do the same. Set expectations. This is how we buy. We want a proposal, then a demo, then you can meet the stakeholders, then we will expect a hands on trial, then we buy. If the salesman doesn’t want to sell that way, he can pass, if he does want to sell, he will know not to call the CEO on day 3.

Oh, the food and beer, were awesome…

IPO No No

Subtitle, Does social media marketing pay?

I read about GM pulling their paid ads off of Facebook after marketing executives determined the ads had little impact on consumers. Here is a news flash GM, nether do your cars. OK, maybe that is harsh. But, it seems to me that a newly organized company who had a large (but not large enough) IPO would not release this information right before Facebook’s IPO.

GM is a company that needed a government bailout to stay afloat, and then has still not been able to raise their stock price to a point where the tax payers can break even. We need to be able to sell our stock at $43.67 and GM stock is at 21.42 today. So I don’t think I am going to listen too much to them talking down a profitable new media company like Facebook.

What does it mean? Well there are two points. Does the marketing work, and why go public.

Does social media marketing work? Yes and no. Remember Social Media marketing is still marketing, and some marketing is good, and some, not so good. Think Super Bowl ads. Some are catchy, well designed ads that actually talk about the product or service. Some are funny, with no connection to a product or service I can see, and some just suck. So some of these are good marketing decisions and some are not, but you can’t say placing an ad during the Super Bowl is just good, or just bad.

I believe Social Media marketing works when you can generate a buzz about a product or service. Getting spikes and having something go viral is key to social media. It is hard to get enough people to get so excited about a car that this process can happen. How many people that use facebook have an Apple product versus a GM product? I think that is the issue.

The why go public? Attention. Trying to create the viral effect I mentioned above, in and with the media they know, old media. Simple as that.

The real winners will be companies who understand how to add social media into their existing marketing strategy effectively. Not a company that can’t track an increase in sales to click ads in a social media platform.

InstaDamn!

Instagram was bought by Facebook for 1 Billion dollars. A 2 year old company with 12 employees. What is it that Facebook was buying? Users? Market? Technology? Whatever the reason, it cost about $37 dollars a user.

That number seems both a lot and a little at the same time to me.

It is a lot of money per user when Facebook is buying 27 million of them at the same time, especially when many of them are already Facebook users, so the cost per unique or new user may be much higher than the $37 dollar number.

It is a little amount when you look at a customer by customer basis. Would you pay $37 dollars to gain a new client? Most companies’ acquisition cost for a new lead or prospect are much higher than this. Do you know or track your cost to acquire new customers? You really should, but you knew that.

Facebook thinks it can sell more in advertising than the $37 dollars per user. I would say that is a fair bet. In addition, it isn’t like those billion dollars was generating a lot of interest sitting in the bank with this economy. It is an investment. A land grab advertising investment.

Am I shocked a 2 year old company can be worth a billion dollars? Absolutely. Do I think this is the end of the big deals? Absolutely not. But I do understand that the way to make money in this industry has changed and a everyone who wants to stay out front needs to understand this.

Words Mean Things

I must have said that phrase to the sales people working with me a thousand times. Words like “Synchronize”, “Cloud”, “Real-time”, and “Unlimited”. These words have a dictionary definition as well as common usage. It is important to define the techno babble words you use with your prospects and clients so they understand what you mean.

If you say to your clients, “you get unlimited data.” When you mean, you get a lot of data until you are in the top 5% of data users in your area, they may disagree with you. They may even feel you have violated your contract with them and they may even sue you. Just ask AT&T. Story here.

So the point of my blog today is not to slam AT&T. I am an AT&T customer and I’m generally happy with their service. My point is to show how words have meanings that can get you in trouble keeping a happy client. If you say you get unlimited data, but that isn’t “technically” what you mean, stop. Explain until they understand.

If your prospects can’t understand you, it is hard for them to buy from you, and even harder to not blame you if there is an issue.

Sales Engineer Hippocratic Oath

OK, I know Sales Engineering is not brain surgery, although I do feel I have earned a doctorate in it. I do have my version of the Hippocratic Oath for Sales Engineering. “First, lose no deal.” As a Sales Engineer, it is easy to cause a deal to go south. Too Much information, too little information, the wrong information, so many ways to break this oath.

I recently spoke to a group of sales people who all worked for the same company. I spoke to each of them one on one and was amazed with what I heard from each of them on their needs for a Sales Engineer. Everyone was different. Some wanted minimal help, some wanted maximum help, and some wanted a little help.

What did I learn? You can please everyone. As Sales Engineers our jobs are to support the sales team, the way they want to be supported. Some need a lot of help, some very little, and they are both right. It is the sales person’s deal. I am there to advise and support, AND do the demo the way they want, in a way that will not lose the deal. The advice needs to happen before you are in front of the customer, and if they refuse your advice, you have to deliver the demo their way.

There are only two things I will not do while supporting the salesperson, lie, or let them lie, even if it isn’t on purpose. Otherwise I am there to serve at their pleasure.

Give a little, or give a lot, it really doesn’t matter, so long as we are closing business.

The Freaky Line

What is the freaky line?  According to Robert Scoble, it is the line in the sand where when you tell people about them they freak out and say "that sounds dangerous." Robert wrote in a post on Google+ on meeting  the founders of Face.com. They do face detection based on your photos on Facebook. Aim your phone at someone and it'll tell you who they are. In his words, “I tried it out and it's freaky!... But I want it. “ At the end of the article Robert continued to say,”… I'm totally into this new world. I've crossed the freaky line… So, will you cross the freaky line?”

With full disclosure, I’ll tell you I screamed “Yes!!!!” at the top of my lungs into the computer monitor. So maybe I’m not the best person to moderate this discussion. I pole vaulted over the freaky line a while ago.

 I want technology that works for me, does what I want it to do, and I want it to be convenient for me. All of those things means that I need technology to read my mind. There are good things and bad things inside my head. There are good things and bad things with technology. So the good things in my head can get gooder, and the bad things could get badder. Not sure how much sense that last sentence made, even to me, but the point is, technology is not bad or good on its own.

Technology does stuff that we tell it to do, that is where the bad can happens, and people have been doing bad, long before technology. I want technology to be magic and magic = freaky. So if you want a rotary dial phone and broadcast TV, knock yourself out, there is a town in Wyoming for sale where you can do that. If you want to get on the freaky express, next stop Hogwarts, come with me.

Siri, File a Lawsuit

Have you heard a New Jersey man is filing a class action lawsuit against Apple based on his claim of false advertising? You can read the story here. He contends that Siri does not preform as advertised, and without Siri, the iPhone 4S is just a more expensive iPhone 4. So what is going on here?

First, I think he is wrong. There were many enhancements in the iPhone 4S, dual core processer, additional storage, redesigned antenna, as well as a dual transmit ability on AT&T that made the 3G phone nearly 4G fast. What did he focus on? What was sold to him. The advertisements were done something like this. Siri, remind me to get milk, and a reminder was set, not look at our cool new antenna.

So when you are doing a demo, do you show the antenna, or do you let Siri talk? My point is, do you make the cool stuff look cooler than it is? Sometimes cool is cool enough, and you don’t need to make it Buck Rogers. We have all heard under promises and over deliver, but does this work on a demo?

Well what I do know that works is real life workflows shown smoothly. You don’t have to stack the decks, you don’t have to bottom deal. You have to show what’s real, really good. You never want a new customer not to be able to use the product as shown, it will bite you and might even end up in court.

Puppy Sales

After years of talking about it, my Wife and I got a puppy. We knew we would really like one, but we just didn’t have the time to spend with one. Both of us working outside of the house, it just wouldn’t be fair, for any of us. Now that I am working at home and my wife has some work at home flexibility, it seemed the perfect time.

We had been Puppy sitting for a friend and the experience was all we needed to get pushed over the edge. We both have had dogs before so we had our likes and dislikes. We knew more what we didn’t want than what we did want.

I saw some pictures of some puppies on a rescue site that seemed like good candidates for us. We went to take a look with the expectation that we wouldn’t find one that we could agree on, we were wrong. You can see Ben’s Blog here.

As I was trying to get Ben to sleep last night my thoughts turned to new sales people. How many of you treat a salesperson like a new puppy?

Do you make time for him?

Do you set firm boundaries?

Do you set a schedule?

Do you have checkups?

My guess is you don’t. You hire your new “puppy” based on pedigree alone, looking at their resume. You show them where the old used toys are, (software, hardware, etc.) your last dog used. You have no time to spend with them and get upset when they whine to get attention. You give them the run of the house and can’t believe they aren’t housebroken and makes messes you have to cleanup.

Just as this is unreasonable with a new puppy, it is unreasonable with a new salesperson. Just like the checklist you use to make sure you do everything for your new puppy, you need a checklist for what you need to do with your new salesperson.

If you want them to grow up happy and healthy, you have to start them out right as a pup.

Commodity Trader

Let me start with a definition. Commodity: “In economics, a commodity is the generic term for any marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs.” This is from Wikipedia, I hyperlinked if you want to know more about them. In addition the description goes on the state: “…the market treats it as equivalent or nearly so no matter who produces it.” If you are reading this, you may be a commodity.

Don’t feel bad, but it is something you need to know. Unless you produce something or provide services than no one else or a small number of people provide, you and your products are commodities.  

Many of the people I talk to are in the IT Services market. There was a time when computers equaled magic. No longer. It is really hard to charge more for servicing a product than it is worth. Think home appliances. When was the last time you took a toaster to the Mr. FixIt shop downtown? Even your big screen TV? Not worth the cost. We don’t spend the money when we can put it towards newer, better, faster, even if it has only been a year or two.

What makes a TV different from a computer? Data. Your customer’s data is not a commodity. So while the hardware, software, network, or provider that is used to access the data may be a commodity, but the data never is.

So if you want to be “less” of a commodity, tie yourself to the data.

Distort Reality

Isn’t that what we do in a really good demo? Take reality and compress it, turn it, make it fit our solution in a logical way. I just read a news story (Here) about the FBI file on Steve Jobs. One of the things that was said about him is the following:

“Several individuals questioned Mr. Jobs’s honesty stating that Mr. Jobs will twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals,” according to the FBI file.

I always felt there was a difference between out right lying and distorting or twisting the facts, especially in a demo where the “facts” are often weak at best. And aren’t we also trying to achieve our mutual goal with the prospect?

If you want to see how slippery truth is, just ask 3 different people the same question about something they all just watched. Truth is so easily warped in our own mind, it might get closer or further away from the “facts” we were just shown.

For me, using my ethics to stay true to the needs of the prospect, override the strict interpretation of the “truth”. This is because my job is to present a new more functional reality to the prospect by distorting their current less functional reality by showing how twisting my solution around their requirements works.

If I wanted to be in the fact business I would have been a librarian. I’m in the solution business.

Phil’s Shadow

Groundhog Day. It is a perfect holiday. Made up and everyone knows it, knows it doesn’t matter, but needs to know anyway. Do you have any Groundhog days in your business?

You know those things that you worry about, think about, obsess about, but really mean nothing? Maybe you have a “thing” about employee time off, or personal internet use, or whatever, is this really what makes your business special or unique?

In your mind right now, list the top 5 things that take you to the next level. Is your Groundhog Day on that list? I bet not. Top 10 or 20 list even? I would say no. So maybe if you took the effort you spent looking for shadows and applied it to items 1 through 5 you would be better off.

Don’t let Phil’s shadow distract you from heading to the light.

There Is Still Time…Brother

I just re-watched the 1959 adaptation of the book, “On the Beach”. You can follow the hyperlink to more about the story. Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, end of the world, how can you go wrong? What really struck me was how different people deal with the end.

The end of the day, the end of work, the end of a job, relationship, friendship, life. Whatever is ending, everyone deals with it differently. So how do you deal with endings?

There are several “groups” of reactions. Denial, just act like everything is fine. Overreaction, the sky is falling the sky is falling. Adult, deal with the issues and move on. I’m sure I could make smaller sub-groups, but these will do.

The key part is, there is still time. If you see an end and you are proactive, there is still time. Time to plan. Don’t deny what you see and know, use that information. Don’t overreact, all things end. Do be an adult and develop a separation plan.

No one wants to start a partnership with an exit plan, but when will you be more reasonable or fair. Once emotion kicks in? No, make sure you have thought about the end, it is thinking about you.

All things do end, but there is still time…brother.

Big Extended Dysfunctional Family

Or I could have called this blog, connectors in your life. Or don't F people, karma works. Because I have seen an overwhelming response from the channel.

Most of you who read my blog know I lost my latest gig recently. I did what I do, I talked about it, in my blog, on Facebook, on Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, text, hell I may have even spoken to someone about it. And the response from everyone has been amazing.

As most of you know I am a positive person. I believe things happen for reasons and you are more likely to see your next greatest thing with your chin up. I have talked to people who told me they heard from multiple people that they should speak to me. This type of story is helping carry me through.

Where did all these great people come from? While I’m not sure I deserve them, I think I earned them by being their friend when they needed one. Connecting someone here, an idea there, passing a lead, taking a call, showing someone how, telling what I know, and generally just being one of the big extended dysfunctional family that is the SMB community.

Thank you all and keep it coming, by the way, Mom loves me best.

The State of Your Business

Tonight the President will give the State of the Union Speech. Well, to be accurate he will give the State of the Union as he sees it Speech. Which begs the question, do you do the same with your business?

Objectivity is a hard thing to have when looking at yourself. For most of us, our business is us. So looking at our business is just as hard as looking at ourselves objectively. So hard in fact we spend lots and lots of money to join peer groups or hire consultants to be honest for us.

Believe me, I’m not saying not to do those things, in fact I encourage it. But before you spend a dime to get someone else’s honest opinion, give your own honest opinion.

Do you feel a little sick to your stomach hearing what you said? No? Go back and do it again, more honest. Think like your spouse. There, you got it. Now when you pay someone to give their opinion, you have something honest to compare it too.

Be sure to give the opposition their rebuttal as well.  

On a Personal Note, Part Two

It was less than 2 months ago that I shared the news with you that I had decided to pursue a new career, leaving Autotask after nearly 6 years to join Bradford Networks.

The decision for me was not an easy one, as I had built many friendships and ties into Autotask, their customers, and the industry, but I felt the need to grow personally and professionally.

The great news was that I would get to build a brand new channel with my friends and peers in the MSP/IT Services space. This was a true win win for me.

The more I explored the needs of the SMB channel for the security features that a NAC solution could offer, compliance checks, guest management, dynamic vLans, etc.,  I saw a huge potential for Bradford and the channel as I have shared with many of you.

Sadly,I am no longer with Bradford.

To say I am disappointed is an understatement. I saw, and still see, such a need, as well as a business case for these solutions in our marketplace and for our customers.

My biggest disappointment? Not being given the chance to fail. By that I don’t mean that I would have failed, in fact I think it would have been a huge win, but the chance. Isn’t that all any of us want? A chance. To win or lose, succeed or fail, but just a chance.

This has left me with a hunger, a feeling of incompleteness that feels worse than failure. I have been feeding that hunger with lessons learned, the good and bad. So as in all things in life, the only path worth taking leads forward.

Now it is time to get back to work and feed that hunger with a new challenge, a new goal, a new position.